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Swedish start bias is killing me

I have the same problem with Boudicca, I usually start at the tundra playing as Celts, because tundra usually has forest. But while my capital has a bunch of forest, I am surrounded by useless tundra and sometimes the game thinks that all that tundra and snow is enough "space" for me and places an AI capital 10 tiles ahead in the not-frozen region below or above my starting point

Also, yes, the map generator sometimes wants to have a laugh with us. I've already got a full desert start as Hiawatha, a landlocked Carthage and endless jungle (zero forests) as Boudicca, all of these with starting bias on.

Well, if they don't, I had extremely bad luck. I ended up restarting after a full failed attempts (not reload until I find a good map, I usually got until the Renaissance each time). I ended up with a very nice floodplains start surrounded by forested hills. It ended up being the easiest Diplomatic victory I've ever obtained and now I feel guilty

Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy-Ben Franklin

I thought they were an average civ before, but with this start bias, definitely below average now (assuming you don't re-roll). Unlike Russia, they don't have anything that lets them compensate for the bad start (Russia has +border growth, + hammers, and +gold, from trading strategic resources). Instead, the best early-game part of their UA requires them to work specialist slots, which requires population, which requires food, which tundra does not have.

Better hope for lots of fish. Imo, Sweden has the worst start bias in the game, when combined with their UA. If you play random starts without re-rolling, they really feel now like Russia, but without any UA/UU/UB, which is what Sweden's start literally is now. Okay, so they're guaranteed coast and Russia isn't. But, 90% of tundra starts have coast anyway, even on Pangaea.

edit: I get the idea. Tundra is best for diplomacy since you don't make anyone mad, and no one wants your land, and you have nothing so it's REALLY hard to build early wonders. In G&K, my favorite civ was Russia precisely because of its tundra start, and my love for the old diplo victory. But, it also happens to work against everything Sweden stands for for the first 200 turns, which is GP generation. Now, Sweden has to get into a war with its neighbor, just to get better land so they can actually have cities that can grow. Food routes come at the cost of gold, so it's actually counter to diplo. Due purely to the new start bias, Sweden's UA got a lot worse, not just a little worse.

Russia has always had a tundra start bias, I've never read anybody complaining about their starts.
The way that start bias works is not that your starting settler gets plumped in that type of terrain. What happens is that the map generator divides the map in regions, then counts the tiles, and then your settler will end up in the region with the most tundra.
You're more likely to end up in plains adjacent to tundra because of food requirements.
Before Sweden got this tundra start bias I often pulled jungle starts for them, I was shaking my head over that. Sweden and jungle? I think Sweden needed a start bias that prevented these jungle starts.
What could perhaps help the quality of cold starts is to choose wet terrain, to get a bit more vegetation in the tundra.

I don't care so much that Sweden got a tundra start bias, Sweden represent Sweden-Finland and even though we don't have any tundra in our countries so much, but we have it in the north. Denmark, represent Denmark-Norway should have a tundra start bias. Not only because Norway actually have tundra in their country (more than Sweden-Finland anyway), in Civ 5 they also have a unit that fight better in tundra (and snow). And one reason the Vikings settled Iceland, went to Greenland, went viking, was of the scarcity of food in their homeland.

"A mistake, no doubt, but still, I shall come. Only don't blame me when it rains.” - Eeyore

I played a game as Sweden a couple of days ago. It was an easy win due to the higher amount of great people in BNW, (GWAMs being split from the GE/GM/GS pool, mainly) but the tundra start sure made it harder to get going early on.

The main benefits of Tundra, of course, are Dance of the Aurora (especially for buying great people) and for not having a lot of neighbors or having neighbors who want your land.

To its credit, tundra has a better base yield than desert and often comes with an ample supply of forests, allowing a player to "chop" for some early production. If you were just going to build a trading post on it anyways, (since you're almost certainly going diplo win with Sweden) may as well get an extra food.

That said, think that Sweden got an overall major buff in BNW in spite of the start bias. Lower early game aggression means more games that make it to the eras where Sweden's UUs come in, and the splitting of the GP pool means more GPs, which means more "free" influence."

Securion must be Bill O'Reilly's civ fantatic handle. His show isn't on basic cable in Europe, therefore, it must be in ruins by now. No country could last more than a few months without Billo obnoxiously shouting his opinions at you through the television.

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I think the moderators ought to move your post to The Chamber [Off-Topic] forum.

But since your post is here, let's just say that Mr. O'Reilly should be entitled to his opinions whether they be obnoxious to you or not. I suppose that "The Rev." Al Sharpton's race-baiting opinions that are spouted off on MSDNC are not obnoxious to you??

That said, think that Sweden got an overall major buff in BNW in spite of the start bias. Lower early game aggression means more games that make it to the eras where Sweden's UUs come in, and the splitting of the GP pool means more GPs, which means more "free" influence."

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I think that's fair overall (another boost was the Reformation belief allowing me to purchase any Great Person I wanted with faith). It was just painful early on. I wonder what would have happened if I had stuck out my first attempt.

Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy-Ben Franklin

I never had much problem with tundra starts, your capital is usually on a river on the edge of tundra (meaning plenty of good tiles still) and the first thing I always do is try to expand away from the tundra. I can usually get a nice 4-city core that has barely any tundra tiles, and the later cities I might as well build on tundra areas because they matter less.

Now if you are literally surrounded by tundra in all directions it would be horrible, but on standard size maps I've never had this happen.

I should load the save where that decidedly wasn't the case. Dry, no river, in the middle of Tundra (I built my second city about 12 tiles to the south just on the edge of the tundra). I ended up bogged down by barbarians the whole time. I got a cool little canal city, but, if it weren't for that city, my capital would have been trapped by ice and could not reach the rest of the civs. That was actually my favorite part, the map did look cool. I just found it un-fun.

Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy-Ben Franklin

I'm still playing G&K, and I'm annoyed with start bias, especially with:

-Sweden, always start in jungles (I hate jungle start, unless with Siam or Aztecs), but apparently it changed in BNW
-Byzantium: no coastal start??? The Ottomans have a coastal location for Istambul, and it's basically the same city as Constantinople.

And few off-topic questions:

@Securion, are you American? Who's Billy O'Reilly? What does "obnoxiously" mean?
When french suburbs were burning few years ago, it was almost usual for us, but for CNN it was like the City of Light was in fire. Not to forgot that channel has some problems with geography

"I was involved in a big old debate/conversation about this a while ago. We came to the conclusion that a great engineer or great merchant should be able to build a canal. I'm a fan of the idea that any cargo ships passing through it would have to pay you a tax, but that wasn't so universally decided." -Anonymous.

Plus I love the Dromon.. The best naval unit IMO. Built early, the gain XP very fast (with military tradition > range promotion!! they upgrade to galleass so you keep the benefits), and are useful in defense. That's why continental start for Byzantium annoys, I'm not fond of archipelago and tiny islands.

"I was involved in a big old debate/conversation about this a while ago. We came to the conclusion that a great engineer or great merchant should be able to build a canal. I'm a fan of the idea that any cargo ships passing through it would have to pay you a tax, but that wasn't so universally decided." -Anonymous.